The sun today. There appears to be an emerging Cycle 23 spot
at the left, but still no new Cycle 24 spots. Click for large image
That’s never a good sign. Below is an excerpt from an article in Science Daily that ponders the question:
Excerpt: The sun has been laying low for the past couple of years, producing no sunspots and giving a break to satellites. That’s good news for people who scramble when space weather interferes with their technology, but it became a point of discussion for the scientists who attended an international solar conference at Montana State University. Approximately 100 scientists from Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and North America gathered June 1-6 to talk about “Solar Variability, Earth’s Climate and the Space Environment.”
The scientists said periods of inactivity are normal for the sun, but this period has gone on longer than usual. “It continues to be dead,” said Saku Tsuneta with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, program manager for the Hinode solar mission. […] The last cycle reached its peak in 2001 and is believed to be just ending now, Longcope said. The next cycle is just beginning and is expected to reach its peak sometime around 2012. Today’s sun, however, is as inactive as it was two years ago, and scientists aren’t sure why. “It’s a dead face,” Tsuneta said of the sun’s appearance.
Tsuneta said solar physicists aren’t like weather forecasters; They can’t predict the future. They do have the ability to observe, however, and they have observed a longer-than-normal period of solar inactivity. In the past, they observed that the sun once went 50 years without producing sunspots. That period, from approximately 1650 to 1700, occurred during the middle of a little ice age on Earth that lasted from as early as the mid-15th century to as late as the mid-19th century.
I’m never encouraged when a solar scientist describes the face of the sun as “dead”.
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Flowers4stalin,
The idea that soot is now a major factor contributing to Arctic melt is neither and assumption, nor is it absurd. There are multiple studies out recently that point to particulate pollution as a major cause of ice melt via albedo changes.
Just a few ‘absurd assumptions’ listed below, there are more if you care to look.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070809172126.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080319085406.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080407132120.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080323210225.htm
http://www.livescience.com/environment/050328_arctic_soot.html
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/arctic_soot.html
http://dust.ess.uci.edu/ppr/ppr_hogrc_wrt.pdf
My birdbath is frozen solid this morning. Kind of a late hard frost, even for Montana. There is more new snow in the mountains.
The cycle23 spot didn’t even get a number. Solar Terrestrial Report shows nothing for sunspot number for several weeks now. Looks like there’s “something” on today’s image at high latitude right in the middle, but it’s not dark like a sunspot. Weird looking. Just a bad image? Fly on the lens?
[…] Scientists not sure why Sun ‘continues to be dead’ Scientists not sure why Sun ‘continues to be dead’ […]
“Crosspatch: While ergotism was certainly a serious problem during the Middle ages, the information about the Black Death on your link is nonsensical. Norther Norway and Sweden not affected? A third (at least) of the population died!”
Closer to half the population in Norway. The point I was trying to bring out, though, was that ergotism may have caused even greater death and kept the populations down long after the plague had passed. And ergotism would have been possibly related to climate.
You are correct though, the lecturer’s belief that Scandinavia somehow escaped that wave of the plague is clearly incorrect.
http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu/shared/articles/Shindelletal-jclim03.pdf
Simulations were performed using a version of the
Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) GCM containing
a mixed layer ocean with fixed heat transports
and a detailed representation of the stratosphere…..(hmmmm…..dangerous)
………. We examine the generalized climate response to volcanic
eruptions and its dependence upon the size, time
of year, and frequency of the eruptions. We compare
this with the long-term response to solar forcing as evidenced
by the changes between the late Maunder Minimum,
a period of very low solar irradiance during the
latter part of the seventeenth century, and a century later…….(oh!!)
….. While paleoclimate reconstructions of surface temperatures
in past centuries are uncertain, there is broad
agreement among different methods and data sources,
at least at the level of the NH mean temperature variations…….( today is wrong…imagine)
…… On the regional scale, European
temperature estimates are most reliable, as historical
and a few long instrumental data series augment
the more widespread proxy data such as tree rings in
the proxy network reconstruction. The reconstructed European
regional temperature anomaly is thus a key test
of a model’s regional response to forcing…………
REFERENCES;
……………………….. Hansen, J. E., and Coauthors, 1996: A Pinatubo climate modeling……..( *&””+/- ????)
TSI = f (sun spot) ???????….( not yet)
Flowers4Stalin & leebert:
Brett Andersen’s global-warming blog at Accuweather a month back quoted a paper implying a 2-3 degree Arctic temperature anomaly might be traced to solar wind input during the ongoing denoument to solar minimum.
I’m aware that a prominent heliophysicist has recently here discounted the possiblilty that such an inference be tellingly made, just sayin’.
tty & crosspatch:
Bubonic plague has three of modes of infection. Inhaling spores is 100% fatal, where injesting live bacilli might only be 10%, and blood born infection inbetween.
Under the climate conditions that prevailed(families huddled near the hearth), one really needs no further explanation for the Black Death, even if other factors contributed.
I’d hate to see ergot take the fall that has befallen CO2.
The sun died
The sun died, with my love
And life’s all in vain, in my heart there’s rain
But….But…But Al Gore said that it’s most likely our Carbon Monoxide & Dioxide that is affecting the Sun this way. Either that, or excessive cow flatulance. And by God, if Al Gore says it, then it’s the truth.
Very interesting article. Yeah, I don’t like hearing that the sun is “dead” either!
Bill:
That first ScienceDaily article proves what I have been saying. If Arctic pollution was so bad before and in the 1900s and 1950s (after it started in earnest in the 1850s), why did the world cool and sea ice increase during these times (especially in the period 1906-1911, the coldest temperatures since the Dalton Minimum)? Heck, sea ice was so thick in the 1970s during relentless soot pollution in the U.S., Europe, and Russia, that Time Magazine freaked out and said we were plunging into an ice age. Go to NCDC’s Cryosphere Today and look at historical sea ice averages since 1900 and you will find poor correlations with increases in soot. I know it is crap compared to satellites, but it is all we have.
The point is, Bill and leebert, that when you say that 90-94% of Arctic sea ice melt is caused by accidental human soot pollution from such low latitudes, you are implying that solar cycles, ocean temperatures and currents, wind patterns (AO; ask NASA), changes in cloud cover, and NATURAL soot and dirt from volcanoes, wildfires, and just plain dirt from natural sources like beaches, have minor to perhaps meaningless impacts. Let me make this clear: I am pleased that you understand the need to reduce soot pollution and I agree that it shouldn’t even be around to the magnitude that it is and that it is being tolerated by the modern communist movement. It is real pollution and bad for health and yes bad for albedo of snow and ice, I just disagree with the magnitude. Good luck getting rid of that pollution and get India and China better technology like modern natural gas.
RE: Flowers4Stalin (22:04:33) :
Parts of China are at a reasonably high latitude.
A meridianally oriented strong polar jet stream will take air parcels from China out over the Arctic Ocean in one day’s time. Such a jet stream will actually reach South China and take its air parcels to the Arctic.
[…] to think that he’s smarter than Mother Nature. Give us about two more record cold winters due to lack of solar activity, and maybe the fallacy of his arrogance will start to soak into his pea […]
Ha!
Interesting addition to the discussion of sot in the northern latitudes and arctic sea ice: FOREST FIRES.
http://www.nifc.gov/fire_info/fires_acres.htm
2004-2007 were out of the park record years, in the 48 year table. There are single years, here and there in the table that are high. Nothing compares to these four years.
I admit this does not include Europe/Asia.
I am not sure how this fits into this discussion. It does add another factor into particulates in the atmosphere and sot. Someone more knowledgable than me could perhaps sort this out.
Well, according to the NOAA’s 2007 prediction..we’re still right on track to not knowing yet. Their prediction was a lack of activity until around now, and in a few months will be the fork between the high and low activity predictions. The Solar Cycle Progression chart is tracking along the forecast so far.
D. Quist: Read more about current and historical fires. Right now there are significant fires in SE Asia peat and chinese coal. U.S. park statistics are skewed by decades of fire suppression before an attempt to more naturally use fire. For that matter, North America used to have a lot of prairie fires (we don’t seem to allow those to burn Kansas anymore) and the natives set fires to keep trails open, control territory, and control animals.
BTW maybe someone can enlighten me. I see two very small spots toward the right side of the sun, one at the equator and one slightly lower. You can only see them when you enlarge the image. They’ve been there for a week or so. Are those sunspots are are they too small to be counted or are they something else?
SteveSadlov:
I did not mean that China was a low latitude country per se, but a country that is of lower latitude than Russia, Europe, and North America (in terms of Canada). Back through the 1950s-1970s, there were weak to nonexistent pollution acts on these countries and it could be said that Russia was intentional due to poor crop yields. As for the polar jet stream, I understand that Indian and Chinese pollution does make it to the Arctic via low-, mid-, and upper-level wind patterns, but pollution from Europe, Russia, and North America would have more pure effects, and would get there faster and more regularly. I know that darker colors absorb more heat than lighter colors and I am pleased that Bill, leebert, and others (but not many others) understand it enhances snow melt and that it should be eliminated immediately, but their statements from the studies of Ramanathan and Zender imply that India and China (and some of Africa) are essentially in control of the Arctic instead of the sun, ocean currents, wind patterns, cloud cover, and natural soot from wildfires sounds like something James Hansen would say.
How much wood is burned in 9,328,045 acres?
Vermont claims 26 cords of wood per acre. I know that is not representative. I am just putting a number. Sorry, lost the article, referencing this number.
A cord is 3.62meter^3.
That is roughly 878million cubic meters of wood. That is a bunch. Some earlier years were as little as 2-3million acres. So 2004-2007 put out a lot of sot and CO2. More so than other years before 2004.
2004-2007 burned 36 million acres.
2000-2003 burned 22 million acres.
1996-1999 burned 16 million acres.
based on the table:
http://www.nifc.gov/fire_info/fires_acres.htm
I’d say we have something to talk about here.
D.Quist:
Great point! You bring up a fascinating correlation of the mega-seasons of wildfires of 2004-2007 (the West literally burnt to a crisp) with rapid sea ice melt in the Arctic at the same time, and how the 2003 was ho hum and Arctic sea ice melt was ho hum (relatively) that same year. Humans caused plenty of these wildfires, but summer lightning storms caused plenty more, and humans did control the spread of these fires and soot as a result, even if it wasn’t by much as humans don’t control fires very well anyway. Of course the historical data of forest fires in long ago years is pathetically brief due to poor observations and measurements of burnt land area as well as, of course, surpressing natural fires which taints it.
To David S. on the small (unmoving) sunspots – the SOHO satellite optics occassionally produce small darkened out spots due to technical faults. Some of these spots seem to last for a few months and then resolve while others only last for a week or so.
You can check whether the spots are technical faults versus real spots by using the MPEG animation feature which will give a month or two animation. Any fixed dark spot is a technical fault since the sun rotates fairly quickly.
http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mpeg/
Thanks, Flowers4Stalin
I posted two comments, my first one was “lost”. In the first comment I suggested that there might have been a substantial number of fires in Europe/Asia also, I have not been able to locate that kind of information.
Either way the sheer volume of wood must represent a substantial amount of sot.
In addition, weather patterns, were does all this stuff go. I know the jet-stream (does it go up that high?) sends a lot of weather west to east. But where exactly, and does it reach the arctic at all?
Interesting observation: 800-900 million cubic meters of wood represents a lot of CO2. It would have added twice as much CO2 in the 2004-2007 seasons compared to the 1996-1999 seasons. One kilogram of wood produces 1.9kilogram of CO2. A cubic meter of wood is roughly 500kgrams. So roughly 800-900 million m^3 of CO2 was released per year in 2004-2007 vs. 400m^3 in 1996-1999. The USA emits 5600 million m^3 per year. I would say that Anthony’s observation that CO2 emissions are down or flat for 2007-2008 (in another post about CO2 measurements), should also include this observation of substantial CO2 emissions increases during the 2004-2007 fire seasons.
Last point. The CO2 from these fires are not neutral. Those forests are gone and it will take years/decades before they return. So, the short term release from increased fires need to be considered when measuring CO2 in the atmosphere.
I am doing this estimates on the back of an envelope. I just want to highlight the substantial increase in fires over the last 15 or so years. It is not only an observation issue. These are real changes.
They said the same thing about my puppy :'(
Next thin you know, they’ll be saying “Oh, the sun just went to live on a farm, where it can run and play all day long”
Bill Illis Thanks for the info. I appreciate it.
D. Quist:
I am sorry if I do not provide more technical mathematic language, as I am only an 18 year old college student heading into his second year. However, I have been reading up on the AGW communist movement since I was 14 and have always wondered why CO2 keeps going up and up. We hear it is due to ocean outgassing and of course evil capitalism, but I think, one of the strongest and most underrated factors, at least today, are fires, most notably the ones that are intentional, such as in the Amazon. When a forest burns, it sends out not only SO2 (which may or may not land on snow and ice) but CO2, and when the life of the forest goes, so does the reservoir for the CO2. This is compounded by replacing the burnt and/or cleared land such as prairies, pine forests, and the Amazon with surfaces that don’t take the CO2 back out of the air, such as buildings and to a lesser extent farms. Fires during long term drought make it harder for the forest to grow back. The increase in fires hasn’t just been in the western U.S. (which I believe is off to a slow start this year, maybe the negative PDO will reverse the trend because it has been so cold this year and STILL wet), but also in Canada and most notably Alaska which I believe in 2003 or another nearby year had a record fire season with one of the biggest fires ever measured in the state. As a proud survivor of the 2003 and 2007 So. California wildfires, I was able to observe, just last October, the effects of the fires. My pool was covered completely in ash, the sky was overcast with volcanic-like ash and smoke for days and didn’t go away completely for two weeks, and there were patches of black soot on the area all around my house, even though the closest fire was 11 miles away. Obviously, soot pollution and CO2 “pollution” from fires and cheap industry requires much more study.